Monday, August 17, 2015

THREE HUNDRED (300) E-MAILS FLAGGED FOR CLASSIFICATION REVIEW — THUMB DRIVES WITH HILLARY’S E-MAILS CLIMBS TO THREE (3) — HAD THEY BEEN IN POSSESSION/CONTROL OF UN-AUTHORIZED PERSON — HILLARY’S I-T CONTRACTOR NOT AUTHORIZED TO HANDLE “CLASSIFIED” DATA — HILLARY’S I-T CONTRACTOR INDICATES THAT ALL E-MAILS MIGHT HAVE BEEN PUT ON A BACK-UP SERVER

STATE DEPARTMENT REPORTS TO FEDERAL COURT THAT THREE HUNDRED (300) HILLARY CLINTON E-MAILS HAVE BEEN FLAGGED FOR REVIEW FOR CONTAINING “CLASSIFIED” MATERIAL

POSSIBLY “CLASSIFIED” E-MAILS REACHES 300 ACCORDING TO STATE DEPARTMENT LETTER TO COURT

According to a report by Politico, “Intelligence agencies are pushing forward with their reviews of emails from Hillary Clinton’s personal account that might contain classified information, while a top Republican lawmaker is questioningwhether Clinton’s personal attorney had the proper clearances to handle material deemed ‘TOP SECRET.’... The intelligence agencies flagged 300 emails that warrant further scrutiny, according to a court filing the State Department made to explain to U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras why it is taking so long to make the emails public under the Freedom of Information act....” ( See “300 Hillary Clinton emails screened for classified info” by Josh Gerstein, 8/17/15, Politico [http://www.politico.com/story/2015/08/hillary-clinton-emails-300-screened-121438.html]).

Politico provided these additional observations about the likely scale of E-mails to be reviewed: “.... The new figure of 300 warranting further scrutiny.suggests [sic] that by the time officials finish wading through the roughly 30,000 emails the former secretary of state returned to her agency last year, about 1,500 are likely to be referred to intelligence agencies to see if they contain national security secrets.... ‘Out of a sample of approximately 20% of the Clinton emails, the [Intelligence Community] reviewers have only recommended 305 documents — approximately 5.1% — for referral to their agencies for consultation,’ Justice Department lawyer Robert Prince wrote in a court filing [ to U.S.D.J. Contreras] related to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by Vice News....”

LEADING SENATOR QUESTION HRC’S LAWYER ABOUT QUESTIONABLE HANDLING OF THREE (3) THUMB DRIVES

Also in the same Politico article by Josh Gerstein, “Meanwhile, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) asked Clinton attorney David Kendall to explain how he secured three thumb drives containing back up copies of roughly 30,000 emails Clinton gave to her former agency in printed form last year.... ‘It appears the FBI has determined that your clearance is not sufficient to allow you to maintain custody of the emails,’ Grassley wrote in a letter sent to Kendall Friday and obtained by POLITICO. ‘Reporting indicates that Secretary Clinton may have provided you copies of her emails in December 2014 and that government officials realized that the emails contained classified information in May 2015 yet the Department of State did not deliver a safe to store the thumb drives until July 2015.’... Grassley suggested it was unlikely that a safe — reportedly in Kendall’s law office — would by itself be deemed adequate to hold data classified at the “TOP SECRET/Secure Compartmented Information” level.... [E]arlier this month, her personal lawyer David Kendall turned over to the FBI three thumb drives containing copies of the messages. The FBI has also taken possession of at least one server that was used to store Clinton’s emails after she left the State Department....”

HILLARY’S I-T CONTRACTOR NOT AUTHORIZED TO HANDLE “CLASSIFIED” DATA — BUT — SAME CONTRACTOR INDICATED EXISTENCE OF A BACK-UP SERVER FOR HILLARY’S E-MAILS

It had been previously reported on this blog that HRC’s IT contractor, Platte River Networks, was not among the 13,000 IT contractors authorized to handle “classified” information (See “UPDATE & BACKFILL: THE 'CONTINENTAL DIVIDE OF I-T CONTRACTORS ' EDITION” -- comment by Galewyn Massey above, 8/17/15 ).

However, it should be noted that according to many news outlets, Platte River Networks , which is the Denver-based cybersecurity firm that Hillary Clinton hired in 2013 to maintain her old email server, says that probably a full backup of the device was made; and as a result, the thousands of emails Clinton deleted might still exist ( See e.g., “IT firm hired by Hillary Clinton: It's 'highly likely' there's a backup of emails she deleted” by Natasha Bertrand, 8/17/15, The Business Insider [http://www.businessinsider.com/hillary-clinton-it-firm-platte-river-says-email-backups-are-likely-2015-8]).

For example, according to the report in the Business Insider, “.... The IT firm hired by Hillary Clinton to oversee her private server has told ABC it is "highly likely" a backup copy of the server was made, meaning any emails Clinton deleted before she handed the server over to investigators may still be accessible....”

4 comments:

Anonymous
said...

This is interesting because I don't know if Hillary will fold. I think she has health issues and radiates a feeling that she hates this. Laws were broken but I doubt charges will be brought. Maybe a report issued by justice department.

UPDATE: THE “IN AN ‘UNRELATED’ BUT VERY INTERESTING FIOA CASE — HILLARY CLINTON’S STATE DEPARTMENT RESPONSE IS CONTRADICTED BY CURRENT STATE DEPARTMENT’S RESPONSE” EDITION

IN A CASE INVOLVING A FIOA DEMAND FOR THE E-MAILS OF HILLARY CLINTON’S CLOSE ADVISOR PHILIPPE REINES — ORIGINAL RESPONSE BY STATE DEPARTMENT OF NO RELEVANT & RESPONSIVE DOCUMENTS IS COMPLETELY CONTRADICTED BY DISCLOSURE THAT THERE ARE >>> [WAIT FOR IT] >>> SEVENTEEN THOUSAND EIGHT HUNDRED FIFTY-FIVE (17,855) THAT ARE RESPONSIVE

THIS ALMOST BIZARRE STORY DOES PROMPT ME TO ASK THIS STARK QUESTION — WAS HILLARY CLINTON RUNNING A ROGUE AND LAWLESS OPERATION AT THE STATE DEPARTMENT WHILE SHE WAS SECRETARY OF STATE ? ? ?

According to a report that appeared in the Daily Caller by John Sexton, “More than two years after the State Department claimed there were no emails responsive to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request about a close Hillary Clinton adviser’s contact with the media, the [State] Department has informed a judge it has located 17,855 emails that appear to match the criteria.... More than two years after the State Department claimed there were no emails responsive to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request about a close Hillary Clinton adviser’s contact with the media, the Department has informed a judge it has located 17,855 emails that appear to match the criteria....” (See “STATE DEPT. FINDS 17,855 MISSING HILLARY CLINTON ADVISER EMAILS” by John Sexton, 8/18/15, The Daily Caller News Foundation [http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/08/17/state-dept-finds-17855-missing-hillary-clinton-adviser-emails/]).

The article goes on to state that, “.... The website Gawker filed a FOIA request in 2012 seeking any emails between Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Philippe Reines (a top Hillary Clinton adviser) and a list of 33 major media outlets. Interest in Reines’ correspondence with the media was prompted by an angry email exchange between Reines and journalist Michael Hastings. In the exchange, Reines lost his temper and told Hastings to ‘f-ck off.’... In July of 2013, the State Department responded to Gawker’s [FOIA] request with a letter which stated, ‘After a thorough search…no records responsive to your request were located.’...”

UPDATE: THE “IN AN ‘UNRELATED’ BUT VERY INTERESTING FIOA CASE — HILLARY CLINTON’S STATE DEPARTMENT RESPONSE IS CONTRADICTED BY CURRENT STATE DEPARTMENT’S RESPONSE” EDITION[CONTINUED FROM THE COMMENT ABOVE]

SOMEBODY IN THE STATE DEPARTMENT HAD A CHANGE OF HEART — OR SOMETHING — A TOTAL OF 81,159 PHILIPPE REINES DOCUMENTS WERE SUDDENLY FOUND AFTER THREE YEARS --- TWO YEARS AFTER THE STATE DEPARTMENT SAID THERE WERE NONE

Then suddenly everything changed somewhere deep in the bowels of the U.S. State Department. “.... Earlier this year Gawker filed a lawsuit asking a judge to force [the Department of] State to produce documents which were responsive to its initial FOIA request....” Then, “.... Finally, in a ‘court-ordered status report’ the State Department has admitted to having located 81,159 emails belonging to Reines. Of those, State found 22 percent may be responsive to the FOIA request made back in 2012. ‘The Department believes that it will need to conduct a line-by-line review of an estimated 17,855 emails for applicable FOIA exemptions.’...”

In conclusion, the Daily Caller made particular note of the following: “.... No explanation is offered in the status report for why the State Department initially claimed there were zero responsive records to the same request.”

A QUESTION ARISES

It seems obvious that when this FOIA request was received at the State Department in 2012, Philippe Reines was recognized as a close associate of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton; and the request was probably given the routine treatment at the time.

One has to ask whether this was the result of a culture fostered by the Clinton management team in place at the time under Secretary of State Clinton. Or to put it in a more straight-forward fashion was Hillary Clinton running her own rogue operation at the State Department, which was so lawless that it issued blanket FIOA denials for any “Friends of Hill,” like Philippe Reines.

Needless to say, more evidence in the way of timelines and flow charts covering the specifics of the handling of this FIOA request and the initial back-of-the-hand response would be necessary before any real charges could be made, but the complete turnaround on the Department's initial and recent responses is indicative of something that had been radically wrong back in 2012 during HRC's reign.

Also don't forget this Philippe Reines is the same person that was part of the HRC team that decided which of Hillary Clinton's E-mails were public records and which were personal.

HILLARY CLINTON’S ATTEMPTS TO EVADE DIRECT ANSWERS TO NEWS & MEDIA QUESTIONS CAUSES HER TO MAKE MORE FABRICATIONS, CONTRADICTIONS & AT LEAST ONE UNNECESSARY LIE

NY TIMES REPORTS ON SOME OF HILLARY’S PROBLEMS AT BRIEF PRESS CONFERENCE

HILLARY SAYS THIS ABOUT HER E-MAILS --- “THIS IS PART OF THE ORDINARY PROCESS.... EVERYBODY IS ACTING LIKE IT’S THE FIRST TIME IT’S EVER HAPPENED. IT HAPPENS ALL THE TIME....”

Here’s the view from Amy Chozick of the New York Times: “In a testy exchange with Ed Henry of Fox News on Tuesday, Hillary Rodham Clinton defended her handling of the server that hosted the personal email account she exclusively used as secretary of state and reiterated that she did not receive any emails that were marked as classified....” ( See “For Hillary Clinton, Another Grilling About Emails” by Amy Chozick, 8/19/15, NY Times/ First Draft [http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/08/18/for-hillary-clinton-another-grilling-about-emails/?_r=0]).

Basically, Ms. Chozick described candidate Hillary Clinton trying to bob and weave so as to avoid Fox News Ed Henry’s simple and direct questions. Nonetheless, Hillary put herself deeper in the soup with fabrications and contradictions like this: “This is part of the ordinary process.... Everybody is acting like it’s the first time it’s ever happened. It happens all the time....”and “.... My personal emails are my personal business, right? We went through a painstaking process and turned over 55,000 pages of anything we thought could be work-related. Under the law, that decision is made by the official. I was the official. I made those decisions, and as I just said over 1,200 of the emails have already been deemed not work-related. All I can tell you is in retrospect had I used a government account and I’d said: ‘You know what, let’s release everything. Let’s let everybody in America see what I did for four years,’ we would have the same arguments....” [In case you missed it, what’s > > > “... over 1,200 of the emails have already been deemed not work-related....” < < < all about ? ? ?]

Amy Chozick’s final passages perhaps might become the most inconvenient: “After that, Mrs. Clinton started to depart the gymnasium here, where she had just concluded a wide-ranging town hall meeting. An NBC News reporter shouted, ‘Is this an indication that this issue isn’t going to go away for the remainder of your campaign?’... But by then a visibly irritated Mrs. Clinton had already made her way toward the door. She threw a wristy wave goodbye to the press corps as she said, ‘Nobody talks to me about it other than you guys.’...”

Why possibly most inconvenient ? — It caught Hillary in a quick and unnecessary lie. According to other reports, Hillary was asked a question about E-mails by one of the “ordinary folks” that had spoken to her immediately before the “presser” in the Las Vegas gymnasium (See “Hillary Clinton gets testy when pressed on email” by Annie Karni, 8/18/15[updated, 8/19/15] Politico [http://www.politico.com/story/2015/08/hillary-clinton-gets-testy-when-pressed-on-email-121506.html][final passages quoting participant Otistine Brown]).

About Me

I formerly have commented on various political blogs concerning Republican politics. Although the focus of my political commentary has been on the Brooklyn GOP and other aspects of politics in Brooklyn, I have also posted commentary about national matters.
If you wish to contact Galewyn Massey directly, please, Email to galewynmasban@gmail.com